WhatsApp Live Location Sharing Feature: Here’s How It Works

There are more 1.3 billion active monthly users on WhatsApp and the number is increasing day by day since its release. Today, WhatsApp has become much more than just an instant messaging application. It has recently launched another striking feature that let users share their live location for specific time period. To use this cool live location feature, users need to turn on their location and give location permission in their mobile settings. They can even control the time period for which they want to share their live location with other users. Read more to know about this intriguing feature of WhatsApp.

Steps to Share Your Live Location

You can follow the below steps to share your Live Location with your friends and family using WhatsApp.

• In order to share your WhatsApp live location feature, you first need to open the chat. After that tap on Attach -> Location-> Share live locations.

• The live location functionality of WhatsApp lets you share your real-time location for a certain period of time. So decide the duration of time for which you want to share your live location. Once the time period is completed, your live location will not be shared with other users.

• In order to stop sharing your live location for all chats you need to open the WhatsApp and then tap Menu Button > Settings > Account > Privacy > Live location.

• Once you have shared your live location, the user who receives it gets a chat that displays the initial location as a thumbnail which is followed by the time duration for which other users can access the live location.

• Users can also share their live location with one contact through individual chats or with members of group chats.

Benefits of Live Location Feature

This feature of WhatsApp comes with innumerable advantages. Let’s have a look at the major benefits of Live Location.

• Though this location sharing feature is already available on different platforms like Google Maps, Telegram and Messenger, the feature will get a wider audience as the daily active user base of WhatsApp is about 1 billion.

• The live location feature of WhatsApp has an extensive range of use. As per the official blog of WhatsApp, this function can be used for sharing your live location while commuting so that your loved one can know your exact location.

• When you share your live location, you will get a choice to pick a time frame for which you want the live tracking to last. Suppose you want to meet a person for a business meeting then also you can share the venue with the person so that they can easily know your location.

• This feature is available on the paperclip icon that is right next to the chat box. As the location is shared in the structure of chat and it can be sent to the individual chats as well as WhatsApp group.

• If you want to keep a track of different people or groups who are sharing their live location updates, you can check out in the Account Privacy settings. In WhatsApp groups, the location of the group members who have shared their live location will be visible on a single map.

• WhatsApp has also confirmed that this feature is end-to-end encrypted to maintain the privacy of the shared location. So this feature is also quite safe to use.